Jaded
by Insanity under the moonlight
Summary: Everyone likes to think Naruto's oblivious, naïve to the world's true cruelty. in the end it's them who chose to be oblivious to Naruto's true inner workings. (the things I write at 4am…)


Pretend was always my favorite game as a child. It only took one person, and I could play it at any time. It's so easy to pretend, I do it all the time now. I pretend I don't notice the way people look at me, the way people treat me, I pretend I'm not hurt and smile through the dull pain. In a way I'm not really pretending, I stopped noticing all the looks and inhumane treatment, the only time I do notice is when someone looks as me with kindness and treats me like I'm an intelligent being.

Friends.

Those are the people I can't overlook. Their people who treat me like an equal. Well I shouldn't say equal, but as something that isn't utterly repulsive or shouldn't be breathing. I've seen them give me looks too – annoyance, anger, and jealously (of all things). But the most shocking looks are the ones of – dare I say it – affection. The one feeling I've so desperately been working for. But why does it feel like a hollow victory? I have friends and people that care for me, but why do I still feel so alone?

Isolated.

Ah…now I understand.

While they float above the icy waters of despair, I sink down to the bottom of the abyss, our view of each other distorted by the water. It's not that I'm depressed, a better metaphor would be as if I were on the other side of a valley and there was a gap between us-a dark pit of pain and suffering and to get to the other side you had to sink down to its very depths and scale its sheer cliffs to drag your torn and exhausted corps back to the light-and once you crossed over to the other side you could never return.

But here I go rambling again.

The point is, they could never truly understand me unless they too had fallen into this crevice. Like Gaara and Sasuke. Gaara understands me. He got lost in the dark abyss, but with a little help he managed to find his way out.

But Sasuke…no, he's too far gone. His eyes have adjusted to the darkness, like a form of evolution he learned to survive and thrive in the darkness.

But of course this won't stop me.

I would rip his eyes out and give him new ones if that's what it took to return him to the light. But that's a whole other story.

The point is, I've reached a point of no return. No matter how sure I am that these people care for me, I can't help but doubt. Be cautious. I hold them at an arms-length so that if they turn out to be poison I can quickly sever off the arm I held them with. The limb may never grow back, but it's better than having to cut out my heart. Thinking about it, friends are like fingers.

They aren't necessary.

Very useful yes, but mandatory for survival, no.

I feed them enough information so the bonds between us survive, giving them nothing more than common knowledge and passing them off as something new. And they eat it up. No questions asked. In fact, they don't even ask about me. They don't even wonder when my birthday is.

Then again, sometimes even I forget about it.

I just think of it as the day to stay out of sight.

Lots of people think I'm an enigma, but I'm quite a simple person really, just not in the way they think.

I'm just jaded.

Jaded beyond repair.

That's why all the glairs seem to go over my head, half the time I'm not even pretending I truly don't notice them. I've just gotten so used to the weight of their stares on my back I'd feel strange without them. Even the people who simply chose to pretend I don't exist. I've wondered if I died yet many times but dead or alive I'm still here so far.

To anyone else this kind of life would be unbearable, they would lose their sanity (hell maybe I have) and maybe even their lives after they kill themselves. As tempting as it's seemed in the past I never really acted with these urges because in the end I still want to live. I cling to the hope of reaching the light at the end of the tunnel (in a metaphorical sense not the afterlife) the hope of not being seen as a waste of space and even now as I trudge along with this burden that weighs down on me infinitely. That light in the distance doesn't seem so far away.

Then again, I've become so good at this game of pretend sometimes I can't even tell when the game begins.


End file.
